A Troubled Project at Modern Materials Inc (MMI)

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Challenges Experienced
Discussion
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Modern Materials Inc. (MMI) is a company that manufactures materials used as raw materials by other manufacturing and construction companies. It was established in 1927 and known by a different name until 1991, when it became known as MMI. It has experienced constant growth through mergers and acquisitions of other companies. It has since then employed many people, making yearly sales of more than $3 billion.

The company has since then suffered from overcapacity, foreign competition and depressed manufacturing economy issues that have affected its profit margins in the recent past. This led to a study into the occurrences. This study is an analysis of the activities that resulted in the organization’s current status.

Challenges Experienced

The company faced a lot of challenges; stiff competition, high staff turnover, inadequate information system, incompetent supply chain management and reduced capital base amongst others. This was followed by a series of activities to wade off competition. In 1995, MMI hired a staff from its competitor, Harvey Woodson, as the executive vice president for quality.

Harvey Woodson, in 1996, proposed a re-engineering of the company’s supply chain so as to give weight to customer service. A massive downsizing followed in 1998, and left the remaining staff stretched and overworked. MMI also lacked an integrated information system that could be used to handle all its operations.

Since the merger and acquisition of other companies to form MMI, the systems that were in use were the once inherited from these companies. It did not integrate the systems into one, but operated on a stand-alone basis.

This was because as the companies were being merged, each was translated into a department and thus moved along with the information systems they were using in their previous environments. These systems, however, could not adapt easily to the new environment, and lacked coherence and hence the supporting information systems became inadequate.

As a result, the exceptional computer controls used to automate the processes were not fully utilized. In the case of staff turnover, there were no systems in place to make sure that there was continuity in the services.

This severely hampered operations within the organization after the 1998 downsizing. For instance, when Harvey Woodson left the organization, the development of the new system came to a standstill since there was no practical replacement for continuity.

Discussion

There was no documentation of processes within the company thus hampering the organization’s planning process. When the United Consultants Associates (UCA) was consulted to spearhead the process, the end users were not consulted for their ideas and suggestions. This led to poor decision making that was not consultative. The execution of any project calls for a proper plan.

The use of schedules of project activity such as Gantt charts help in proper planning, and offer the means to which project progress report is given. This was not put in place hence the massive overlap of activities at MMI. Lack of project planning also led to poor labor division, and hence no project direction. This is why most of the staff developing the system did not deliver the expected results (Kerzner, 2009).

There were a lot of assumptions made at MMI. First, it was assumed that downsizing would save costs. Secondly, the MMI management assumed that the organization’s sole problem lied within the supply chain management.

It was also an assumption by the system developers, UCA, that they understood the needs of the users of the system. They went ahead to design a system based on their own understanding. Systems should be changed based on an organization’s needs and not simply adopting what the competitors have done.

After the new system was acknowledged, it experienced a lot of problems that are typical in any failing project. They include negativity by employees, who are the would-be end users in the new Supply Chain Management System. Going through the Case Study, UCA did very little to involve the users in system development.

According to Pew and Mavor (2007), there is a need to involve the users of a system in all stages of a system life cycle ranging from concept design to system testing. This was lacking in the plan for the new system, and is the reason as to why the development of the order-entry system had to be reworked.

I totally agree with the work done by Carol Young who was consulted to carry out a review of the project progress. First, Carol chose the best method to conduct search a review; Project Health Check. A project health check is one of the best methods used to carry out a project assessment.

A project health check is very popular with project evaluators as it helps in defining the state of any project at the time of the evaluation, and thus identifies problems in time for corrections. It also helps to find the aspects that may hinder or aid the delivery of project in time. It aids analysis of findings and proper presentation of recommendations in a detailed way (Hut, 2008).

Secondly, Carol Young was right that the timing needed to complete the entire project, and the money needed would shoot from the current projections done by Leach. Such a system is very complicated, and needs the guidance of an experienced person who is familiar with the system development life cycle (Cohen, Dori & Haan, 2010).

To improve a project’s health, there should be effective planning, that includes a plan for health check and audit, a project analysis, reporting and recommendations (Hut, 2008). According to Roberts (2011), project management is a daunting task. It calls for identification and management of risks and budgets, something that was not done at MMI.

Mary J. Ellis was right in proposing that the project should continue. Given that it has been started already, completing it is the only option. However, after Leach’s reaction to Young’s findings and the assertions of the same findings by West, Mary is right that Leach should not remain to be the leader of this project.

Yes he has the vision and the enthusiasm but he is not an objective leader. He did not take time to listen through what the findings meant for the company. He also lacks the potential to see the project completed in good time. He did not only contest to Young’s findings but also reacted furiously to West’s assertions (Turban, Kohli, Cheung & Lai, 2006).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the management of MMI needs to sit down, and draw a proper plan. This will make the process of developing, and using the proposed new system valuable to the organization. End user involvement at all key stages of the development of the system will ensure time is saved.

It will also eliminate any back and forth processes which consume a lot of time. The “Project Health Check” done by Carol Young is a revelation of many problems, and oversights. The recommendations should be addressed by the management to come up with a solution.

References

Cohen, S., Dori, D. & Haan, U. (2010). A Software System Development Life Cycle Model to offer Improved Stakeholders’ Communication and Collaboration. Int. J. of Computers, Communications & Control, 5(1), 20-41.

Hut, P.M. (2008). Project Health Check, Project Management Best Practices. Web.

Kerzner, H. (2009). Project management: A systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons.

Pew, R. W., Mavor, A. S., & National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Human-System Design Support for Changing Technology. (2007). Human-system integration in the system development process: A new look. Washington, D.C: National Academics Press.

Roberts, P. (2011). Effective project management. London, UK: Kogan Page.

Turban, E., Kohli, R., Cheung, C., & Lai, L. (2006). Electronic commerce 2006: A managerial perspective. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

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